Read an interesting article today by Joseph Burgo, Ph.D. , reposted by Reality's Last Stand.

Couldn’t comment because as is often the case, authors hide behind the Only Paid Subscribers Can Comment wall, even for free articles, a behaviour I find rather repugnant.

The article covers the topic of why men masturbate with the aid of pornography. Several books on the topic are openly lambasted for hiding behind moral or religious judgement. The author also argues against pornography as a true addiction, based on somewhat tenuous arguments from neuroscience.

He then proceeds to explain it all on the basis of release from mental distress, immediately falling guilty of the very arguments he used to deride other views. He has decided it’s all a problem if mental disorder, and then proceeds to satisfy his confirmation bias by quoting “studies show..”, referencing psychological studies which we now appreciate to be extremely variable or irreproducible at worst, or rather fuzzy around the edges as best. He conveniently neglects all the recent psychological studies which demonstrate the damaging effects of pornography in young men, without trying to argue a moral, mental health or physical basis for their results.

It may well be that some of the points argued by Burgo are indeed true, but the article seems less interested in truth than supporting the author’s own confirmation bias. He can be comforted by the fact that few if any people will read this note, and criticisms of his article can be limited by the paywall.